I remember when I heard about ‘The Green Revolution’ for the first time, quite some years ago now, I was thinking to myself that it had to be about some kind of a capitalistic revolution* 
Let it be clear, I am a strong believer that Africa, and the developing world in general, MUST raise yield per hectar significantly and that it is in fact possible to implement structures that would make this possible. I can’t remember the exact yield numbers, but I once heard that yield per hectar in Denmark compared to yield per hectar in Africa was 10:1 – hey something is simply wrong here!!
Imagine what it would mean to the balance of the world if African farmers had same yield as e.g. Danish farmers (or just double, triple or quadruple)! Just take a minute and think what it would mean to highly relevant topics like food prices and food security!? Would it have a positive impact regarding security in the world!? Next, what would it mean to our common environment if sustainable processes were correctly implemented in Africa instead of the opposite!?
Lets come down to planet earth again! I read an interesting blog post the other day that I want to share with you. The post is written by Emeka Okafur (whom I met some years back in New York) who writes on Timbuktu Chronicles, who made TED a reality in Tanzania in 2007 and and and… cool stuff he is doing. MYC4 is not active in Congo, but I think that the following statement from his post is echoed elsewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa. Emeka states with his post: “Urban farming more profitable than white-collar jobs for many Congolese”.
You can then argue whether I was way out of line with my capitalistic revolution??
*) Green carries a connotation of money, wealth, and capitalism, because green is the color of United States banknotes. You can read lots more about The Green Revolution here.
Tim Vang
Ole Vestergaard
Githa Kurdahl
Titus Kuria
Rasmus Hansen
Louise Ravn Christiansen
Dear Tim
I am sorry, but I do not quite understand what you intend to say in your latest blog about yield in Africa.
What is the point? Is it a solution you give? Telling that everybody in Africa shall do as in Congo?
May be my wife is right that I do not understand the language of the younger generations?
But I feel that you kind of neglect all the good people researching , testing and debating where the good solutions are.
Is it better hybrid seeds?
Is it deeper wells?
Is it gmo seed?
Is it millions of deeper wells?
Is it irrigation? Is it waterpipelines?
Is it regaining of agricultural soil (hedebeplantningen)?
Your text sounds as if it is just a matter of doing it whatever it is.
Then it would be more interesting to hear about the possible solutions.
I am sure there is no easy solution in the areas hit by draught just now.
The director of Red cross commented the other day that he would rather be drilling more wells than supporting the people in their extreme situation to day.
I remember from my time in Zambia that the mining companies got a good idea: just remove all the bush and plant huge areas of wheat. Fortunately some good people told them that in few years it would only be desert with no possibility for more than a yield of zero.
There is no doubt that if you can get a stable supply of water it will help a lot, but that costs. So other solutions may be more costeffective? (Is your blog an invitation to Africans to start an irrigationproject with money from myc4?) (I must admit that you already have some so MYC4 may have a strategy?). When I stayed in Zambia I had no problem getting a high yield. I stayed in a compound with a waterpipe from a nearby river and the Danish state paid all the water I needed.
Let me end with just an abstract from a book telling yet another side of the story:
Challenges facing African agriculture
Babu, S.; Anandajayasekeram, P.; Rukuni, M.
Source: Impact of science on African agriculture and food security
Abstract (English): At independence in 1960, Africa was a modest food exporter while Asia was engulfed in a food crisis. The Green Revolution boosted food production in Asia and the global food problem shifted to Africa. However, science and technology have been promoted on an ad hoc basis in Africa’s 45 years of independence. This chapter analyses why the Asian Green Revolution failed to take root in Africa, and why the average African grain yield has been flat since 1960. The chapter shows that the rate of return has been high on investments in research for a few commodities, such as hybrid maize, rice and flowers. However, most countries in Africa have a weak scientific and institutional foundation for transforming agriculture. Long-term investments are required to build the scientific and institutional foundation for a modern agriculture. This is a tall order, but this is what the USA accomplished from 1860 to 1912, what Japan did from 1868 to 1914 and what many countries in Asia and Latin America have accomplished over the past 40 years. The challenge now is to mobilize African political leaders and donors to make long-term accretionary (step by step) investments in science and technology that will boost cereal yields, increase agricultural productivity and drive down real (inflation adjusted) food prices. This is a proven way to reduce urban poverty and the poverty of rural families who are net food buyers. This book brings together empirical evidence from 20 studies on the impact of investments in agricultural research and food security in Africa. Information on the returns to investments in research can help countries in setting priorities for agricultural research. The purpose of this chapter is to highlight the emerging issues, challenges and constraints on African agriculture that beg serious attention from the policy makers. It enumerates a broad set of food security challenges facing African agriculture. Finally, it identifies successes in African agriculture and recent efforts aimed at scaling-up the successes.”
So I hope your story will have a happy end with at good project for MYC4 to invest in and not just a blow in the blog. (You just forgot to tell the ending!!)
Greetings Erik Dam
Hi Erik,
Thanks for your extensive feedback!
I tried to do two things with my post, actually three things (raise two points as well as open up for a couple of reflections/questions).
1) There IS something wrong when yields are so different only so ‘few’ kilometers apart. It is a blog post I am writing and not a ‘scientific paper’ on how to solve it – that would demand a different platform, research, etc. (in my opinion). Would I like to solve it; OH YES, but I agree with you that it is not an easy task and there is no silver bullet (no ‘one-size-fits-all)!! As you mention, MYC4 is at least doing something with the agriculture loans we have uploaded in the past and that will come in the future.
2) I was encouraged by Emeka’s post stating that the person in Congo earned less as a teacher than he is doing now as a farmer. It is a good sign that farmers are actually earning money – if it was opposite then I would kind of doom that Africa would ever rise via agriculture growth.
3) The question/reflection part was the part with “Imagine” – not that I wanted to draw any conclusions, rather the opposite…
I appreciate that you are taking your time to feedback to me like you do and thereby add value to the post. I agree, it was not my best post of all
I am of the opinion that you sometimes have to throw yourself ‘out there’ and sometimes you do not land as planned but sometimes you surpass your own expectations…
Have a great evening, Erik!
Tim
One side of the equation is that of financing, which of course is interesting for us as investors, but also have to be fair for the producers. Yes Danish farmers have very high production per acre, but they are also heavily indebted, my impression is that it’s the tractorcompanies, seedcompanies, fertilizercompanies, pesticidecompanies etc etc that have a party, while the farmer and the bank struggle to make it work.
So to conclude – yes with investments it’s possible to improve the production considerably, but it does matter how it is done – ask the farmer, not Monsanto – the farmers often know what small investments they need to do to improve the production considerably
We need more agricultural investment opportunities in MYC4 for instance working together with:
http://www.kickstart.org/
http://www.oneacrefund.org/
http://www.backpackfarm.com/
These organisations are doing great work (working together with farmers not on behave of), but they need financing! We have to get more MFIs to start taking agriculture seriously and invest. And put the loans on MYC4 because I think a lot of people would like to invest in agriculture.
Agriculture loans are more than welcome on MYC4…
Thanks for the list – I will send the three links to our African office (no guarantees)…. I appreciate the input.
Well, and let’s not forget politics.
After all, one of the BIG reasons why a lot of “developing” countries do so badly on being productive is because we don’t allow them to sell on equal terms on world markets.
The EU is more or less a body formed to support it’s own farmers against the rest of the world’s, at least if you look at it on fiscal terms (it’s spending more than half of it’s budget on this). It does so by subsidizing it’s own produce while tolling the incoming produce from other countries.
Since the US are pretty much doing the same, guess whom this goes against.
And worst of all, once there is excess production, it’s going to the poorest countries as “help”.
No, in THIS area it’s all politics and no technical revolution will change THAT.
@Soren
I don’t know about Denmark, but I can assure you that in Germany it’s not the “tractorcompanies, seedcompanies, fertilizercompanies, pesticidecompanies etc etc” that “have the party”. Essentially all big corporations here are exiting the seeds business because it’s not profitable and there is such a string opposition especially on GM food that it’s just not invest in this business and the machinery business is very competitive.
From the farmers I know I can see that they are just very, very good at complaining to get good terms from the governments while they do know very, very well how to do business.
[...] in Zimbabwe Schmooze Frontier Markets have taken notice, you probably should too! I was reading a MYC4 blog entry on the green revolution by Tim Vang and it led me to another post on the same topic on Emeka Okafor’s Timbuktu [...]